


on a scale of 1 to 10

by deniigiq



Series: Dumpster Fires Verse [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Jessica Jones (TV), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Best Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team Bonding, a lil bit of violence, emergency and safety plans, emergency contacts, not even half of the adults in peter's life are responsible, trying to adult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 09:30:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14615322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “Uh,” Peter started nervously, “I don’t mean to bring up bad, um, feelings. But, Double D. My people and I could really use the help. I’m scared that what happened to you will happen to me and I don’t have a Mr. Nelson or a Miss Claire to deal with it.”Matt turned toward him and the light from the window bleached out the worst of his bruising. He tilted his head very slowly to the right, then sighed and cautiously levered himself up so he was sitting properly.“Okay kid, look. I am—”“A magnet for disaster?” Mr. Nelson offered.(Double D takes a beating, Peter realizes that he needs to make a safety plan in case things go tits up for him too one day.)





	on a scale of 1 to 10

**Author's Note:**

> You know how really close friends start to communicate telepathically? Foggy and Matt are those friends. They love each other they really do.

Peter knew Wade’s name, his home address, and his roommate. He knew the guy started with guns before he went to swords and that his semi-sort of-best friend was a skinny man who every mercenary in the city was perpetually ready to throw down for.

So when Wade got the living shit kicked out of him in Peter’s place trying to take down an arms dealer with a taste for human trafficking, Peter knew right away that the giant realistic otter plush they sold downtown would make his shitty day slightly less shitty.

Wade christened it Money Penny and lovingly draped plastic Mardi Gras beads around her neck.

 

Standing under the florescent lights at CVS with a bottle of Fanta in one hand and a vast assortment of get-well soon cards in front of him, he realized that he knew next to nothing about Double D. And that was pretty messed up given that one time he’d taken Peter and May’s tenancy case against their landlord pro bono.

When she came back from court, May told him that Matt Murdock Esq. was more terrifying than Daredevil any day of the week, which Peter figured was supposed to be a compliment. She hadn’t seen Double D put down a gang of fifteen guys by himself, though, so Peter kept his mouth shut.

 

 

 Peter was putting away groceries with May when his phone rang. He froze in front of the fridge upon seeing the contact name. He couldn’t answer fast enough. There was no voice on the other side, just the sound of flesh meeting armor, over and over, and harsh breathing. The guy hitting Red was puffing furiously. There was a loud clatter as the phone hit the ground. Peter told Double D to ‘hold on, just hold on,” and grabbed his computer to track the call. By the time he and Wade got to where the phone was, Red was gone. His helmet was laying on the ground, shining in the street lights.

It was soaked with blood.

They spent the following hours looking for a body in dumpsters, under trash, in sewers. They found him at the docks, soaked through, lips blue, still half in the water. He looked much younger without the helmet or the glasses. He didn’t open his eyes when Wade hauled him out and over to check his breathing.

He was breathing, but not well. They tried to wake him up, but it wasn’t happening. Peter wanted to take him to a hospital, but Wade said no, people like them didn’t usually do hospitals. He asked Peter if he knew where Red lived and he didn’t, he only knew where his office was.

Wade’s blatant disregard for personal boundaries proved useful; he started rummaging through all of Red’s pockets, shoving hands in between the gaps in his soaked armor and frisking the guy’s bottom half like a pro. He came up with the billy club and then a waterlogged phone, a nicer one than the one they’d found smashed behind the warehouse. By some miracle, it turned on. Wade wrapped it in a cloth he kept to keep his guns dry, did something complicated that bypassed the lock screen, and scrolled through Red’s contacts.

“Which one should I call?” Wade asked. Peter took the phone, it had a different interface from the one he was used to and with a twist in his diaphragm he realized it was because Red had all of the accessibility options on. This was probably his personal phone. Peter instinctively opened the message app, then opened the text conversation at the top of the list.

 **Foggy:** It’s Karen’s birthday tomorrow. I’m putting whiskey in a prosecco bottle for her and I need your freakish knowledge of cork. How do you convincingly re-seal champagne?

 **Me:** You start by conceding that it will not pop the way you are thinking it will because there is no carbonation.

 **Foggy** : Or you can just be fucking rude about it I guess.

“I think this one,” Peter told Wade, holding out the phone to give it back, “They seem pretty close.”

Wade tapped the call button and then the speaker button and Peter prayed that the water wouldn’t get to the inside the phone before the guy picked up. They waited. It was 3am, and Peter was terrified that the guy would just sleep through the call. The call dropped. Wade dialed again as soon as the last beep sounded; he waved at Peter to make sure Red was still breathing. He was making a soft wheezing noise.

“Hello?” a groggy voice finally answered, and Peter thanked God. And fuck. And anyone else who was out there.

“Hello?” Wade said, “Is this, uh, Foggy?” There was a shuffle on the other side of the phone as Foggy sat up.

“Yeah, this is Foggy. Who the fuck is this? Why do you have Matt’s phone?”

“This is Deadpool, and we just fished him out of the docks. He’s actively dying, but I get the feeling he isn’t the hospital type. You know where we can take him?”

They heard a curse, but then Foggy didn’t even miss a beat. He rattled off an address and told them he’d meet them there with someone who could help. He told them to go through the roof access into the place, it should be unlocked. He shouted “Matt, you stupid fucker, don’t die until I get there to kill you,” and hung up.

Wade ended the call and looked down at Red sympathetically.

“I gotta say, I’m jealous, Red. Your buddy calls you ‘fucker’ _and_ comes running when you’re dying. If I like him, I’m keeping him.”

“How are we supposed to get him there?” Peter asked. He hadn’t gotten past ‘find the body’ in his planning. Wade gave him a huge grin.

“We’re gonna carry him, boo,” he said cheerfully. With surprising gentleness he tucked an arm under Red’s knees and instructed Peter to lift his head so he could get the other one under his shoulders. He hauled him up to his chest and then stood with far too much ease.

“Do me a favor, baby boy, and push his head forward so he doesn’t break his neck,” Deadpool prompted. Peter obeyed, and they set off for Hell’s Kitchen.

 

 

The apartment the roof access led to was furnished, but sparse. Deadpool insisted that Red needed to be laid on the floor, despite the availability of the sofa.

“If he’s real fucked up and has a seizure, we want him to be somewhere low and flat,” he explained to Peter.

Red hadn’t made any noise or movement on the ride over, nor was he making any then and Peter’s anxiety was steadily climbing up his windpipe. May had told him once that she preferred her patients screaming and crying when they came in because it meant they weren’t dead or getting there. Wade put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

“He’s fine, Pete. He’s sturdier than he looks. A little water and a concussion won’t kill him. If anything, it’ll be the internal bleeding or the punctured lung.”

The front door rattled and two people burst in. A lady with medium-dark skin and a backpack and a white guy with long hair. Peter jolted, ready to put himself between them and Double D before he realized that the guy had to be Foggy, the one on the phone.

The lady dropped down next to them on her knees and forcefully shooed them away.

“Goddamnit, Matt. You were doing _so_ _well_ ,” She hissed. She unzipped her backpack, dug out a stethoscope and listened to Matt’s lungs. The ends of her hair dragged across Matt’s armor as she leaned over him to shove the head of the stethoscope under the pads on his back. Then she rounded on the two of them.

“How’d you find him?” She demanded, “Drowned? Drowning? Stabbed? Don’t leave anything out.”

Peter struggled to speak; he didn’t know where to start and his usual motormouth was failing him. Wade took over. Found him by the docks. Called Spidey when he was getting beat up. Helmet full of blood, it’s right here. No, he wasn’t conscious. No, he hadn’t woken up since. Water washed away a lot of the blood, but he was still bleeding at the temple. The lady turned to Foggy, who had vanished during the nurse’s check-up and reappeared with several stained towels.

“Help me get him out of the suit,” she said. The guy didn’t need asking twice. He knew exactly where all of the straps holding the armor together were.

Under the suit, Matt was bleeding a lot from a wound in his side and was bruised from hip to shoulder. The lady, Claire, she said her name was, said his ribs were probably broken. That was why he was wheezing; he couldn’t expand his lungs all the way, it wasn’t water in them. She said it was lucky they’d found him because he had a history of collapsed lungs. Foggy’s jaw went tight at the mention of the lung, and Peter wondered if it was because he was reminiscing on that experience or because he hadn’t known about it to begin with.

Matt didn’t wake up when Claire cleaned out and stitched up his wound. He didn’t wake up when Foggy tried to dry his hair, or when he carefully peeled him out from the remaining armor. He didn’t wake up until Claire pressed on his ribs gently to see if they were really broken. He screamed out in pain and flinched hard, then shouted again when he stressed the bones by accident. Claire made hushing noises at him.

“Hey, take it easy. It’s me, it’s Claire. You’re alright, you dumbass. Stop moving, it looks like you broke a rib or two. I’m going to press again, just for a second to make sure. I think we’re gonna need to ice them.”

She pressed. Matt yelped and threw a fist in her direction. It didn’t connect.

“Matthew,” Foggy barked, “Settle the fuck down.”

Matt blearily jerked his head towards the voice, his eyes open but not focusing. They were hazel, and the irrational part of Peter’s mind demanded to know how the guy could look handsome with the shit beaten out of him and half-drowned. Even his bloodstained stubble was artful. Matt moved his head from side to side, as though chasing Foggy’s voice.

“Fog?” He slurred hoarsely. Foggy leaned over his hip and touched his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m right here, Matty.” He moved so he was behind Matt’s head. He carefully lifted it, (Matt whined unhappily in response) then crossed his legs and rested it against his thigh. He ran his fingers through Matt’s hair. “You’re alright, buddy. Just took a bath in the bay, no biggie.”

He glanced at the darkening bruises on Matt’s torso.

“Might have lost a fight with a mutant seal or something while you were down there. No worries, though. We can add it to the list of mortal enemies in the morning.”

Matt huffed a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a gasp, then he relaxed a little and nuzzled into Foggy’s leg. Foggy leaned back and sighed the sigh of an angry man with a puppy in his lap. Claire stood up and fetched a bag of frozen peas from the kitchen and a cloth.

“He’s going to hate this,” she warned, “Deadpool, Spidey, one of you want to give me a hand?”

Peter volunteered because Wade carried Matt the whole way to the apartment.

“Lift him up a little so I can get this under his pit,” Claire instructed, “Matt, we need to lift you so I can get some ice on your ribs. It’s going to hurt a lot, but I need you to stay very still, okay?”

Matt made a confused noise. Foggy repeated Claire’s instructions to him, and he made a slightly more agreeable one.

Peter had to tuck an arm over just below Matt’s less broken and bruised right side to lift him. When he pulled up to get him high enough for Claire to get her hand under, Matt shouted and swore and started to struggle. Foggy bent his head down close to his, shushing him and explaining what was happening. His hair fell over both of their faces. Matt’s chest stuttered as he tried to gasp through the pain.

It was over just as fast as it was started. Matt flinched hard at the cold and tried to get a hand up to dislodge the bag, but Foggy grabbed his wrist and pulled it into his lap. After some more petting and muttering, he relaxed and managed not to squirm too much. He breathed hard through his nose and pressed his head into Foggy’s leg.

“You’re alright, Matty,” Foggy told him softly, “You’re fucking stupid, but you’re alright. And tomorrow, after I’m done figuring out how to carbonate whiskey, I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands.”

Claire laughed. Peter looked at Wade, hoping to convey the slight horror he felt at such statements, but was let down to find that Wade was delighted with the proceedings.

It was around fifteen minutes before Claire decided Matt was no longer in imminent danger. She stood up and stretched, then told Foggy she had a shift in the morning. He promised her he’d stay with Matt, who’d passed out in his lap somewhere around the five minute-mark. She instructed him to follow the ‘usual deal,’ and then cleared Matt to be able to sleep in bed. Wade heroically scooped him up and put him in the bed across the room on Foggy’s behalf. Claire left. It was almost 5am; Peter’s adrenaline was wearing off, but Wade didn’t appear even the least bit tired.

“Thank you so much,” Foggy told them as he walked them up the stairs to the roof. “Seriously. He could have died out there if you guys hadn’t found him. And then I’d--” He cleared his throat and stopped out on the roof. He looked them both straight on, and Peter realized his eyes were blue.

“If you ever need anything--with the exception of causing bodily harm—call me. I mean it. I’m a lawyer, I can help with any legal shit you need. Seriously. I can’t stop him from doing what he’s doing, but I feel better knowing you guys are out there with him.” Foggy turned away towards the stairs and called over his shoulder, “Thanks again and please get home safe.”

 

 

Aunt May gave Peter a look he couldn’t read when he swung in the window just as she hit the button on the coffee maker. His hands were shaking, and she took pity on him after he explained what had happened and let him stay home from school and sleep.

 

 

 A few days later saw him in CVS with a soda, trying to pick a get well soon card for a guy who’d been beaten and half-drowned and none of them quite conveyed the level of ‘thank fuck you’re alive’ that he was going for.

Then it hit him like a load of bricks that he was trying to pick out a card for a blind man who couldn’t see or read it. He shook his head at himself and went to buy his soda.

 

 

Ned knocked on his desk in Spanish and Peter jerked up from his half-asleep slump. He looked into his concerned eyes and sighed, then decided if Double D’s friends knew about him and Wade now, there was no reason _his_ friends couldn’t know about them all too. He gave Ned meaningful eyes and promised him he’d tell him at lunch.

 

 

“You know _Daredevil_ ,” Ned whispered to him as they sat outside on the side of the arts building. Peter shrugged.

“I know lots of people.”

“But _Daredevil_ ,” Ned emphasized, “That guy’s like, a true badass. He’s like batman, but in red and with no cape and real.”

Peter stared at him tiredly.

“So you mean, nothing like Batman? He almost died the other night, Ned. He was hurt so bad, Wade had to carry him all the way to his place. We thought he wouldn’t wake up.”

“You’re on a first-name basis with Deadpool, man. What is your life?”

Peter pressed his face into his knees and shook it to convey his exasperation. Ned didn’t say anything for a few beats.

“Okay, so you seem pretty upset about that. Why? No, nevermind, I get why. I just. I mean, you’re always doing dangerous stuff, too, Peter. You get hurt a lot, too,” Ned paused and swallowed. “I get worried, sometimes, man. Sometimes I think that you won’t come back and when you don’t come to school or answer my texts, I always think that maybe something happened and…” he trailed off.

 Peter’s heart clenched, and his mind went straight to Foggy bent over Matt, shushing him while he screamed, stroking his hair and pressing their heads together. His eyes felt hot and his throat started closing.

“I’m sorry,” he told Ned, although talking more to his knees, “I’m sorry. I guess—I guess I wasn’t thinking that that could happen to me, too.” He took a deep, harsh breath and pushed himself back against the wall. “I’ll. I’ll be better about checking my phone.”

Ned smiled and jostled his shoulder comfortingly. The bell rang and the two of them headed back to class.

 

 

Peter sat in class, but his heart wasn’t in it. He thought about how Foggy took that call at 3am. How he had jumped into action without even asking what happened to begin with. How he’d known a medical professional who was awake in the middle of the night, who could be counted on to drop everything and go running with him. How he’d cradled his friend’s head in his lap while he screamed, and he tried to imagine him and Ned doing to same song and dance in ten years. It probably could have been ironic and amusing, but really it just hurt. As Mrs. Henderson talked about paragraph structure, he thought of the way that Daredevil played his cards close to his chest, never touching him or Wade if he could help it. Smiling on the rare occasion, but never laughing with them.

It brought new appreciation for the leap of faith Matt took for him when he offered his help as a lawyer.

Daredevil obviously had serious problems. Peter didn’t want to wade into his personal life, but he thought maybe the kind of rage Double D carried around came from a feeling of powerlessness. Peter could only imagine what having a disability, on top of whatever else was feeding Matt’s inner rage-monster, could do to that sense of powerlessness.

But having control meant fuck all if you got shot in the head. Control didn’t matter if you couldn’t make a living, couldn’t scrounge up enough to eat in the day. Matt obviously knew that; he couldn’t afford not to play the part of Matthew Murdock Esq. Without Matthew Murdock, he couldn’t be Daredevil, and for some reason, one that Peter found most other supers unable to describe as well, he couldn’t _not_ be Daredevil.

It was a really fucking dangerous game he was playing, and Peter was horrified to realize that every day, he was stepping closer that precipice himself.

 

 

He left school and went home. He didn’t go out that night. Aunt May came into his room and sat down at the foot of the bed, where Uncle Ben used to sit when they’d needed to have a Talk. He didn’t move and she didn’t either. After what felt like forever he cracked.

“I’m sorry, Aunt May,” he creaked. She shuffled forward, reached over and pulled him into her shoulder. Didn’t ask what he was apologizing for. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I’m scared you won’t come home one day,” she told him, her voice wavering by his neck. “I’m so scared that I’m going to pick up the phone and Stark or Colonel Rhodes or Deadpool or someone is going to tell me you’re gone. And I won’t have been able to be with you when it happens.”

Peter hiccupped and couldn’t stop the tears.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll—I can—”

“You can’t stop,” May told him, making everything he’d been thinking earlier seem seven times more real. She pulled back and sniffed. She smoothed the hair away from his face and then took his hands.

 “Peter, you are so good. You want to help others. You’d give your everything, even your life, to help people you don’t even know, honey. I’m so happy to know you. I’m so happy that that’s who you are. But what you do and who you are comes at a cost.” She gave him a watery smile.

Peter sniffed.

“I could stop,” he said, “I don’t want to hurt you, or Ned or MJ or anyone.”

May sighed.

“You could. But if you did, a whole lot of other people are still going to be getting hurt. Could you let that happen, baby? Knowing that you could do something about it?”

She was right. That precipice seemed a whole lot higher peeking over the edge than it looked from the distance.

 

 

Mr. Stark noticed that Peter was out of sorts in the workshop. He must have been suspicious because when he rolled over to Peter in his captain’s chair he was wearing his massive reading glasses (they served a dual purpose as safety goggles, he’d justified on multiple occasions) and holding a tablet, making thinking noises. Peter tried a different tool to break open the outer shell of the latest piece of tech Tony decided he needed to explore. He was tired. He hadn’t slept through the night in days. He didn’t want to think. He just wanted his hands to do what his autopilot brain told them to.

“Pete,” Stark said to the room, “You’ve missed two days of school this week and haven’t been to AcaDec practice once.”

Peter didn’t want to think about how he got this information. He shrugged.

“Haven’t felt so good this week, Mr. Stark. Been going home and sleeping.” Well, laying in bed and trying not have panic attacks. His eyes were closed a lot, it counted.

Stark rolled away making his thinking noises.

“I take it that’s why you haven’t been running around in the suit, either?”

Of course he would check the suit’s location logs. He sighed and guided the new tool along the shell’s inner wall; it kept getting caught on the pegs securing the core to the wall. The resulting clicking grated on his nerves.

“Yeah.”

“So that’s it? Just sick?”

Colonel Rhodes told Peter once that Cap and Stark didn’t get along because Cap was a firm believer in privacy and Tony was a firm believer in sharing. Peter felt more inclined towards Team Cap at the moment.

“Yep,” he said. He twisted the metal wall just so, and the inner core of the tech fell out onto the table. It made a rattling noise, like a marble in the game Ker-Plunk!.

Stark hummed and rolled off to the other side of the lab. He returned to tapping on screens and swaying slightly, the way he did when he was thinking.

“If you ever want to talk, kid, all you have to do is ask,” Tony said without turning around or stopping what he was doing. Peter felt anxiety bloom in his chest at the implication. It was like a trigger switch. He gave up. He put down the tool, shoved the tech away and put his head on the stainless steel table. He tried to breathe the way Aunt May taught him to after the second night of anxiety attacks. In 1. 2. 3. Out 1. 2. 3. In 1. 2. 3. Out. 1. 2. 3.

Tony stopped tapping. Peter heard the squeak of his chair as he stood up. His footsteps started Peter’s way. Peter tried to focus on the breathing. In. 1. 2. 3. Out 1. 2. 3. Tony put a hand on his back and started rubbing wide circles into it. He dragged a nearby stool over and sat on it, didn’t say anything at first, just kept rubbing.

“Your aunt told me she was worried,” Tony finally said, “Something about seeing something not great happen to one of your red-spandex buddies.”

In 1. 2. 3. Out 1. 2. 3. Don’t cry. As soon as the tears start, everything always goes to shit.

“Peter, it’s okay to be scared,” Tony said calmly. “People like us, like your buddies, we get hurt. There’s nothing we can do about that—”

“I just want to be normal,” Peter choked out. Tony’s hand abruptly stopped its rubbing. Then it continued.

“No, you don’t, kiddo. Normal doesn’t save lives. And that’s not what’s upsetting you.” Peter hiccupped and refocused. In. 1. In. 1. 2.

“You don’t know that. Isn’t there some way? To help people, but not hurt _our_ people?”

Tony sighed. Peter didn’t have to look up to know he was reading the ceiling for answers.

“No,” he said simply, “There isn’t. Or if there is, no one’s come up with it yet.”

“Why not?” Peter asked, tears starting to leak out. In. 1. In. 1. In 1.

“Because you can’t make other people not worry, Pete. That’s kind of how love works.” Tony stopped his rubbing, ruffled Peter’s hair, and sat back. “It’s a good thing. It feels shitty in the moment, but it’s a really good thing. Imagine if we didn’t have that. Imagine if you spent your whole life fighting for other people and literally no one gave a shit whether you lived or died. Is that what you’re asking for? Because some people do it that way. Honestly, though? I couldn’t. I need to be needed; I _like_ to be needed.”

Peter scrubbed at his face. In 1. 2. 3. Out. 1. 2. 3. Pretty wobbly. But that made sense.

“I don’t want to hurt my people,” he said softly. “Double D lives two lives, but when he got hurt they got all mixed up and his people were really scared for him. I got really scared for him. I kept thinking about what might happen if he didn’t wake up. His friend, they’re really close I think, I can’t imagine what it must be like for him. It wasn’t the first time that happened; that guy, Double D’s friend, knew exactly what to do. He had a plan. I don’t want my people to need a plan.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his beard; the stubble around it rasped a bit.

“Pep has a plan,” he offered. “She probably has twelve, but she’s only told me the first three. It makes her feel better to have a plan. Rhodey’s plan is to give me a Viking funeral.”

Peter sniffed.

“It doesn’t mean too much to me, I’ve got plans built into the suit so that Pep never has to use hers, but it helps her sleep at night. Your buddy seems to have worked out a plan with his guy, even if it’s a ‘in the worst possible scenario, here’s what you do’ kind of plan. Probably helps his guy sleep at night. It sounds like it’s a good one, too, seeing as your friend isn’t currently dead. Maybe you should do it too, Pete. Make some ‘oh shit’ plans with your aunt, with Ned. It might make all of you feel better.”

Tony got up and went to rustle around the mini fridge in the corner. Peter sat up and wiped his face. He thought about it. It made sense. It would make him feel better, knowing that Aunt May or Ned would know what to do, how to find him in case of an emergency. They would probably feel better too, having something tangible to do to help if it ever came to it. Tony came back and shoved a cold cup of water in his hand.

“What do you think, Pete?” He asked. Peter took a sip of the water. In. 1. 2. 3. Out. 1. 2. 3. In. 1. 2. 3.

“I’ll try.”

“Good man. Now I’m giving you fifteen minutes to get the marble out of that guy,” he waved at the tech, “And then you’re dismissed.”

 

 

Peter didn’t know where even to start with making safety plans, so he did what he did best: homework.

He decided to conduct a survey.

He asked Tony what his contingency plans were and Tony showed him about sixteen different sets of codes and commands for sixteen different scenarios of him getting hurt and/or the tower being compromised. He cheerfully assured Peter that those were only the tip of the iceberg. Peter decided that Stark’s methods were a little too complicated for his needs and for his people’s abilities.

He asked the Black Widow next. She leveled him a look and said that her main safety plans were simple.

Plan A. Don’t get hurt. 

Plan B (in the case Plan A didn’t work out). Get the fuck out of the line of fire.

Plan C (to be pursued only in the case of the failure of Plans A and B). Remove self from the hostile situation by whatever means necessary.

There was no plan after Plan C. She told him that Plan C was very flexible and she’d never needed to go beyond it.

Peter decided that he needed a slightly more instructive and concrete plan of action.

He asked Hawkeye what his safety plan was and Hawkeye laughed so hard he choked. Wheezing, he told Peter that the perfect defense was whatever you came up at the time. Peter tried to steer the questioning towards actual plan-making and realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere when Hawkeye scratched his chin and said, “No, you’re right. That’d probably be a good thing to have.”

He asked Wade. Wade told him that injury and death were not a problem for him. His safety plan consisted of getting the fuck out of the situation and dragging his sorry ass home for a few hours before conniving a new plan of attack.

Peter was starting to see a pattern here.

He reached out to Captain Rogers because the main flaw with his experiment thus far was that the survey subject needed to be a _responsible_ adult. Steve invited him over for coffee like a responsible adult; Peter had high hopes.

 Peter asked him about his and Sergeant Barnes’s and Mr. Wilson’s safety plans and he pointed at the fridge in the kitchen. It was covered in magnets and photos of him, Barnes, and Mr. Wilson (many of which were hilarious, especially the one taken at the beach where Sergeant Barnes was sipping a ridiculous drink out of a tiny straw holding up a bottle of sunblock to the camera, while behind him the other two were asleep in the sand, horrendously sunburnt). On the right-hand side of the fridge was a file holder which someone had slapped a huge heart-eyes emoji sticker on. There were a few files inside with stacks of stapled papers in them. Steve explained that they’d each developed 3 safety plans for what to do in the event of the most likely injuries. Each plan had section for first priority contacts, all persons to be informed in the case of an injury, and some immediate first aid tips. Steve said they also had plans for what to do in a natural disaster and where to meet up in case communications went down for some reason. Peter asked how they’d come up with the plans.

“We’re all soldiers and boy-scouts. Being prepared is what we do. Buck made about twenty plans for each of us when he moved in. Sam and I decided that we probably didn’t need that many and streamlined it.”

“Okay, so I have an aunt and one friend who know about Spiderman. Any advice for making safety plans for that?”

Steve sipped his coffee and frowned as he thought about it. He seemed to be sorting through ideas when Barnes wandered into the kitchen, holding his hair up and complaining loudly about the heat.

“Buck, top two plans for immediate family of new super?” Barnes dug a can of iced tea out of the back of the fridge and popped it open. He leaned against the fridge door. Peter tried not to stare at his lack of arm.

“Plan 1. Medical – emergency contact. How to find you. Hospital or alternative. What’s your cover story. Who has med. rights in event that you’re unconscious. What hospital you want to go to. Medications you’re allergic to. Do you want a DNR. What super can be contacted to take your place.

Plan 2. Death – who knows first, who knows next. Whose executor of your estate. What you want done with your body. What information needs to be shared. What info needs to be deleted off the face of the earth. Potential successor if that’s your thing. Will. Etc.”

Steve smiled at him like he was brilliant. Peter asked him to repeat it all a few times so that he could put it in notes on his phone. Barnes then demanded to know where Sam was and didn’t take Steve’s attempt to pretend he didn’t know as an answer. On the way out, Peter heard him threaten, “If you don’t tell me, my paranoid ass will find out on its own, so spare us all the trouble, Rogers.”

Just for confirmation, he decided he wanted to ask Foggy how he and Matt had made their plan. He had seen it in action and it worked pretty damn well.

 

 

He couldn’t find a single guy in the state named Foggy, and upon reflection, that was fair. The easiest way to do it would be to ask Matt if he could talk to Foggy, but he didn’t think Matt would be too thrilled about him talking to his real-life people.

So he enlisted Ned.

Ned was beside himself in his excitement. He loved Peter’s attempts at safety plans. He asked if he could have his copy of them laminated so that they’d last for all of eternity. He also poked around online and found a guy named Foggy Nelson on facebook, and he very apologetically hacked his account.

It was Matt’s Foggy, for sure. He’d really cleaned up from when he was younger, Peter was impressed. He wore suits in several of his pictures, but he was funny for an old guy. His posts said things like “once again, did not win sexiest man of the year. Currently accepting condolences in the form of liquor and monetary donations.”

Matt didn’t show up in many of his pictures at all, although there was one in his photos from more than a year past which showed him and Matt posing next to a plaque on a wall which read ‘Nelson & Murdock Attorneys at Law.” Foggy’s hair reached his shoulders and he had evidently forced Matt to crouch down and point to the sign with him. Matt was grinning wide, stick leaned up against his shoulder, obviously indulging this request. Peter wondered what had happened between them. When he’d gone to Matt’s office, the sign had just said ‘Murdock, Attorney at Law.’

“That’s Daredevil?” Ned asked, tilting his head at the screen.

“Yep, that’s him,” Peter confirmed.

“He’s kind of, uh. Not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting? Blind Bruce Wayne?”

“Well, like bigger, I guess. More muscle-y? More like Deadpool?”

Peter giggled, imagining Double D all puffed up in his armor, standing on his toes trying to intimidate Wade.

“Yeah, no. DP’s pretty big. Double D’s actually even smaller in person, but don’t let him know I said that.”

 

Foggy, AKA Franklin P. Nelson, Attorney at Law worked at a huge firm downtown. Like, one which Peter couldn’t even pretend he had enough money to walk into. He lived in Hell’s Kitchen, though, just like Matt, which was nice to see. Mr. Nelson apparently wasn’t interested in signs of wealth, although one of his posts bemoaned the fact that he’d just dropped $300 on a watch he couldn’t even read “for the aesthetic.” Where he lived in Hell’s Kitchen was anyone’s guess, but he’d posted a few pictures, including a rare one of Matt looking seconds away from snatching and dunking Foggy’s phone in his coffee, at a café around 54th street. The pictures were all dated Saturday (turned out the café was closed on Sunday), so he and Ned decided to go around that weekend to see if they could catch him.

 

 

The café was old as shit, and the waitresses and waiters were all very nice, and sure enough, there was Mr. Nelson waving a laminated menu menacingly at Matt who’d slumped over the table and was half-heartedly batting it away. Peter knew the moment Matt realized he was there because his whole body slumped forward even more, trying to become one with the table. He still looked like shit; even though the swelling in his face had gone down, it was mottled with a rainbow of bruises. He had bandages over his knuckles and held his chest very stiffly and carefully.

Ned gave Peter an incredulous look; Peter couldn’t tell if it was because he was shocked that their shitty plan had actually worked or if it was because Matt was not even half as intimidating as Daredevil was. He saw Mr. Nelson lean over Matt, apparently trying to decipher what he was groaning into the table top, then look their way. He did a double take, said something to Matt, and good-naturedly waved Peter and Ned over.

When they got to the table, Peter heard Matt grumbling, “It never ends. It never fucking ends,” into his elbow.

“Hello friends, you arrived just in time to pick sides,” Mr. Nelson told them brightly, “Have a seat and tell this man he is an idiot.”

“This is discrimination,” Matt moaned. “Harassment. Possibly battery.”

Peter and Ned joined them nervously. Peter wondered if Foggy was always this amenable to sudden guests or if he was on the warpath to get back at Matt.

“Thanks Mr. Nelson, uh. My name’s Peter and this is my friend Ned and I’m sorry interrupting and barging in on you. I just wanted to ask you about—”

“Kid, breathe. It’s fine,” Mr. Nelson said, “Matthew here told me who you are. And I remember you from the other day. Although, you—” he waved at Ned, “Hello, Ned. Friend of Matt’s friend—”

“Not friends,” Matt snapped.

“ _Friends,”_ Mr. Nelson said over him. Matt rolled as much as he could in his arms the opposite direction, definitely pouting. No one would ever believe Peter if he ever said it out loud. “Anyways, what can us humble, non-aggressive, not-at-all suspicious lawyers do for you?”

Peter’s brain broke and he didn’t know quite how to phrase his request in the face of such cheer. Ned, though, responded to Mr. Nelson’s easy charm with his own.

“Peter said your guy almost died the other day and then he freaked out ‘cause he realized that he’s gonna grow up to be your guy, then we all freaked out because none of us have any plan for what to do when he does that and when he does something stupid and almost dies.”

Peter developed the burning desire to crawl under the table and wait until closing time before he left. He opened his mouth to try to correct Ned, but couldn’t find anything useful or convincing to throw in to soften the blow. He tried once, then twice, then settled for glaring at Ned.

Neither Matt or Mr. Nelson said anything. Mr. Nelson suddenly leaned hard on his elbow with a hand firmly over his mouth and furrowed eyebrows. He was trying desperately not to laugh. Peter wondered if the gum under the table was as old as the café itself. Then he started fantasizing about what he was going to say to Ned after they left. Mr. Nelson coughed lightly, still trying hard not to laugh, and turned to Matt.

“I think I’m going to need a co-counsel here.” Matt raised his head and glared at him.

“Sorry, what? I thought I was an irresponsible dickhead, unworthy of the title?”

Mr. Nelson looked only more pleased.

“So you admit that you’re an irresponsible dickhead?”

Matt mugged at him so hard, Peter wondered if it hurt his jaw. Nelson softened.

“Being serious, pal.” Matt kept up the mugging. Peter and Ned glanced between them.

“Uh,” Peter started nervously, “I don’t mean to bring up bad, um, feelings. But, uh. Double D. My people and I could really use the help. I don’t,” In. 1. 2. 3. “I’m scared that what happened to you will happen to me and I don’t have a Mr. Nelson or a Miss Claire to deal with it.”

Matt turned toward him and the light from the window bleached out the worst of his bruising. He tilted his head very slowly to the right, then sighed and cautiously levered himself up so he was sitting properly.

“Okay kid, look. I am—”

“A magnet for disaster?” Mr. Nelson offered. Matt grimaced at him. Peter wondered how he and Mr. Nelson communicated so much nonverbally without Matt being able to see him.

“I am _talking_ counselor; silence in the court. As I was saying. I am sorry that you got involved with that, and I wanted to thank you for—”

“Literally fishing you out of the Hudson?” Mr. Nelson interjected helpfully. Matt flailed at him as aggressively as he could to indicate his displeasure at being interrupted.

The waitress came over and put down two cups of coffee. She told Matt where everything on the table was, then asked Peter and Ned if they wanted anything to drink. Mr. Nelson insisted they order something. When she walked away, Matt took a sip of coffee and then cleared his throat.

“Yes. So. I am thankful. Thank you, for not leaving me there and for calling Fogs. But Peter, don’t use me as your example for this kind of thing. You’re far better off following Stark or Cap or someone else’s protocol." He took another sip of coffee.

“If you really want to know our safety plan, though” He raised his eyebrows at Foggy, “It’s pretty straight forward. I get hurt, I call Claire or Foggy. I can’t do hospitals; they’re…too much…for me to deal with under duress. And, well, they ask a lot of questions I’m not prepared to answer. Which leads to some complications with. Uh. Let’s just say that Foggy has a social services report filed against him every time I go to the hospital.”

Foggy grumbled and dumped two creamers into his mug.

“So that doesn’t work for me. I have an arrangement with Claire. I trust her and she knows I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Legally, I’m his emergency contact and have power of attorney, so I’m first to know if anything happens after Claire. And if he’s reached a seven on the Damage Scale, I call the shots,” Foggy expounded evenly.

“Damage Scale?” Peter ventured.

“Oh yeah, we have a scale. I guess the scale is more what you’re looking for. It’s like a pain scale, but with specific injuries.”

“Stabbing is like a four,” Matt explained.

“Stabbing in an _extremity_ is a four. Stabbing around a major artery is a seven,” Foggy corrected. “Head injuries which induce unconsciousness for less than 2 minutes are a five, and unconsciousness for more than fifteen minutes in general is a six and a half.”

“Why a half?” Ned asked, fascinated.

“Because if it was a seven, any time we got black-out drunk, Foggy would abuse this agreement and make me do something stupid.”

Mr. Nelson looked delighted at remembering.

“What about the other day, what was that?” Peter asked. Matt considered it.

“That was probably an eight. Also a mistake, actually. I hit your number when I was trying to call another friend to give her the signal.”

Peter felt his eyes go wide.

“A mistake?” He looked to Mr. Nelson, because he had to be the rational one in the duo. Mr. Nelson shrugged, but in agreement.

“He’s supposed to call Jess if he gets in over his head.”

“Yeah, we were working doubles that night for this particular guy anyways, so she was close by waiting for the call. But that asshole hit my hand while I was dialing and everything went sideways.”

The waitress returned and put cups of hot chocolate in front of Peter and Ned, and in desperate need to hold onto something, Peter picked up and cradled the cup. He didn’t drink it, though.

Double D hadn’t meant to call him at all. He had another friend (wow, he really did have a whole separate network didn’t he?). They’d had a whole scheme worked out. He’d had back-up the whole time.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful for what you and DP did, Peter,” Matt continued, as though reading his mind, “It’s just not really how I was planning on things going down. I, uh. The helmet came off, which wasn’t part of the plan, but I left it for Jessica, along with the phone. She’s an investigator, she tracks things like that all the time. I took the other phone that night so she could find me with it. I think either you or DP picked up both the helmet and the phone though, so when she went to get them, she couldn’t find anything. I thought she was on her way, so I tried to keep the guys with me distracted, and then they called for backup and I had, uh, no back up. Hence,” he gestured to his broken body. “It worked out in the end, though. You two found me, Jess found the perp. All’s well that ends well.”

When Ned went still, Peter knew the situation had reached peak weird. He tried to understand.

“You got hurt. On purpose. To buy time for your friend to find you?” he clarified, cradling the hot chocolate even more desperately. Matt reached across and stole the last of Foggy’s cream pots to dump into his coffee and hummed an affirmative.

“Get the guy, give Jess the signal. Go with the guy, Jess tracks me. Meets me wherever the ring is; we take down the ring, go home happy. Twenty guys is a lot, even for me, but sometimes you’ve just got to volunteer to be bait. If it makes you feel better, we do have a panic plan for emergencies, and you got there in the end by calling Fogs.” he stirred the milk into the coffee and took another sip. A strange look crossed his face and he very gingerly put the cup down in distaste. Mr. Nelson snickered. “You are a dick,” he told Nelson.

“I thought you knew it was evaporated, man.”

“A dick.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Mr. Nelson, you knew? That he was doing this?”

Mr. Nelson raised his eyebrows in faux surprise.

“My best friend and my client? In cahoots? How could I ever suspect that both of my grouchy-ass addicts with a propensity towards violence would team up behind my back?”

Matt looked so happy. Peter wanted to punch him so bad.

“Fogs, I _knew_ you’d come around.”

“Shut your face, Murdock. I’m not condoning it.”

“So it’s fine as long as I work with Jess?”

“You deaf, son?”

“But wait,” Peter interrupted again, “Did you know he was going to get--?”

“The shit beaten out of him? Yeah, that’s kind of his M.O., Peter. Do I know every detail of the shit he does? No, I stay out of that. Did I know that he was going to fling himself into the river? No, that was unexpected. Did I know that he has a history of _collapsed lungs_? No, no I did not and don’t give me that look, you aren’t getting away with that one.”

“M.O.? But,” Peter bounced between them having their staring (glaring?) contest. Matt’s jaw ticked. Foggy didn’t look away. A tiny voice in the back of Peter’s head hysterically wondered how you have a staring contest with a blind man.

“It was one time.”

“You know what else happens one time? Dying.”

“My ex is literally obliterating your argument.”

“Well maybe if she wasn’t your ex twice over, this wouldn’t be a fucking problem.”

“You can’t be an ex-ex. That’s a double negative.”

“Untrue. Breaking up with the same person twice makes them an ex-ex. I don’t make the rules.”

“Foggy, it was _one_ time.”

“Two.”

“It was _two_ times, and anyways its not like you don’t have an ex-ex.”

“I do not.”

“Marci.”

A long pause.

“I hate you.” Matt was so smug. He and Mr. Nelson had ventured so far beyond Peter’s original purpose, he was at a loss. They were speaking in code. He looked to Ned for support and found his own expression reflected back at him.

“I think, maybe we should go,” Ned suggested. Peter nodded numbly. He turned to the older two.

“Uh, thanks Mr. Nelson. Mr. Murdock. For? Talking with us? Whatever just happened here.”

Mr. Nelson gave him a sunshine smile. Matt looked the most relaxed Peter had ever seen him. They were terrifying.

“Call me Foggy, and sure thing! Make a scale, it will help!”

“Best of luck, Peter,” Matt told him kindly.

He and Ned abandoned the table and stumbled out to the street. Ned grabbed his jacket and dragged him away from the café as fast as he could.

 

 

“That was the craziest thing that has ever happened to me,” Ned announced when they got safely out of Hell’s Kitchen. Peter felt like he was walking around in a haze. “It’s like. Mr. Nelson knows what going on, but he doesn’t. Which, is like, plausible deniability. That is such a lawyer thing to do.”

Peter had gotten Mr. Nelson all wrong. This was not a man who sat up at night wringing his hands over his reckless best friend. This was a man who was surrounded by reckless best friends, personally and professionally, and who had somehow incorporated ‘sometimes my friend almost dies’ into his life like it was one of his many monthly responsibilities. Like paying rent. He had a safety plan, not because he and Matt had sat down and talked about it, but much more likely because he’d done it often enough for it to become routine.

 

 

Aunt May put the heel of her hand against her forehead when he told her the results of his experiment. She slowly increased the pressure.

“We are using Cap’s system,” she said.

 

 

Mr. Stark thought that it was the funniest shit he’d heard in a long time.

“Of course it’s no big deal to him, Pete. They call him Daredevil. ‘Man without fear,’ that’s what they call him, haven’t you heard? I love it. Safety net? What safety net? Well, that’s sure convenient, but really not necessary. I love this guy.”

Peter scraped the tech sullenly with his collection of allen wrenches.

“I think he hates you, Mr. Stark. And now I’m even more worried about him.”

Mr. Stark just laughed harder.

 

 

When Daredevil rejoined them up on the rooftops a few weeks later, Wade congratulated him on his ribs and Matt assured him that they were still broken. Peter felt his heartrate speed up and his palms start sweating.

“C-Can we make a safety plan?” he begged when they were just about ready to break up for the fight.

“I mean, if you really want to,” Matt said, “Why? Is there anything in particular you’re worried about?”

“No,” he lied, “Just want to be prepared.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I feel like Matt has absolutely no regard for his safety and nothing will change that and over the years Foggy has started to come to terms with that, especially as he starts to take on other supers as clients.  
> 2\. People help me. If an Ex-ex is a double negative, then that would mean that an ex-ex-ex is what? It keeps me awake at night.  
> 3\. Peter and Ned in ten years is my new favorite thing. Someone write this please.


End file.
